One of the horror genre's "most widely read critics" (Rue Morgue # 68), "an accomplished film journalist" (Comic Buyer's Guide #1535), and the award-winning author of Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002), John Kenneth Muir, presents his blog on film, television and nostalgia, named one of the Top 100 Film Studies Blog on the Net.

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

The Films of 2016: The Monster

[Beware of Spoilers]

The
Monster (2016)
is a new horror movie from director Bryan Bertino, the talent who helmed one of
my favorite horror movies of the past decade: The Strangers (2008). Bertino also directed an underrated and highly
disturbing found footage horror film from 2014, Mockingbird.

Bertino’s
new genre film is something a bit different. Basically, The Monster plays like a
modern day The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) episode. It involves basically two characters in one
location, a wooded road at night-time, and an element of the supernatural.

In
this case, that supernatural element is a ferocious -- and very hungry -- creature.

The
Twilight Zone also
told very human stories, and The Monster is like the Serling
series in that regard as well. Here, an estranged mother, Kathy (Zoe Kazan) and
daughter, Lizzy (Ella Ballantine) grapple not only with the monster that
threatens their existence, but the one that has gotten between them -- alcoholism -- and threatens their lives
in a different way.

There
are no elaborate special effects in the film, and the monster itself looks less
impressive the more often it appears on screen.

And
yet the movie casts a spell.

The
Monster is a
slow-burn type horror film, and one in which audiences will increasingly invest
in the main characters and their dilemma. Many of the moments that mother and daughter share are absolutely heart-breaking. The film only goes off track, a little, in
the last act. There, one character’s
actions are baffling, and more than that, even useless. The end needed a rewrite to make a final act more meaningful in the overall scheme of things.

In
other words, the movie doesn’t precisely have to end on the down-note that it
does. Some people might judge the film, therefore, as overly manipulative.

Despite
such a misstep, The Monster moves with absolute confidence and with a total
mastery of our emotional states. The film is tense and upsetting. It’s the
story of two people who have taken a wrong turn in life, and then take a second
(and monstrous) wrong turn that, in a way, restores the balance of their
relationship.

The
Monster is a
horror movie on a small, contained scale, and yet by keeping the approach intimate,
Bertino masters his material thoroughly.
Rod Serling would have been proud.

“There
are lots of things that hide in the woods.”

Young
Lizzy (Ballentine) cleans up the family apartment after her mother has had
another all-night bender smoking and drinking. She attempts to wake her mother,
Kathy (Zoe), because they are supposed to drive to see Lizzy’s father that day.

But
Kathy won’t be roused, and sleeps all day. They start out on the trip late, and
soon night falls. On a long, dark,
deserted road, Kathy and Lizzy reckon with the crack-up of their relationship,
at the same time that it rains heavily.

There
is an accident on the road, and it appears that Kathy and Lizzy’s car has
struck a wolf. But when the wolf carcass
is examined, a strange fang is pulled from its wounds. The fang looks like it
belongs to no known animal.

After
Kathy and Lizzy call 911, a tow truck arrives to pull their damaged vehicle to
safety. But the dark, strange animal that killed the wolf is still nearby, and
attacks the driver, Jesse (Aaron Douglas).

Kathy
attempts to encourage Lizzy not to be frightened, but the monster intensifies
its attacks.

After an ambulance arrives, there is another vicious attack, and
Kathy realize she is finally going to have to be the mother she has always
needed to be, if her daughter is to survive the night.

“We’re
on the old road.”

There
is hope and sadness aplenty in The Monster, a film that concerns
the wreckage of a mother-daughter relationship. A monster has already taken one
of them away, in a sense, when the movie starts. In particular, Kathy is an alcoholic, and we
see in brief flashbacks how she is unable to resist or escape the bottle. Lizzy
and Kathy fight with one another, and shout with another, and it’s all because
Kathy can’t escape from her addiction to become the person that Liz needs her
to be.

In
a fashion worthy of The Twilight Zone, Kathy is called to overcome one monster so
as to face another one, and live-up to her role as parent to Liz.

One
of the key strengths of The Monster involves the two lead
performances, and the development of the characters.

Kathy and Liz are both
sympathetic and unsympathetic at points, and clearly hoping to “save” their
relationship, even if they don’t know how.
Liz has been forced to grow up ahead of her time, and the early,
dialogue-less first scenes of the movie chart this fact in a memorable montage.

In particular, Liz cleans up her Mom’s apartment alone, going through the
wreckage or detritus of her life, as Kathy sleeps it off. On the soundtrack, a country song (“A World
So Full of Love”) plays, and the juxtaposition of the lyrics and Liz’s actions
is haunting. The images and song speak
of a world in which love is crucially important, and yet, on its own not enough
to solve problems, or end suffering.

Kathy
loves her daughter, but is a lost soul. We don’t know what it is inside her that
makes her susceptible to the demon of alcoholism, but that demon possesses her.
There is a brief scene in the film wherein Kathy sits on her apartment porch
and tries to resist drinking. She can’t. She goes dumpster diving instead. In one of
the film’s most emotional moments, her daughter finds her passed out next to
the toilet. Her daughter holds her in her moment of vulnerability. The roles have been reversed. The one who needs care is, instead, providing it.

So little Kathy is tired of being the “Mom,” and Liz wants to be a good “Mom.” The
strange events on the dark road, in the middle of nowhere, allow these two
women to re-establish their roles as mother and daughter in a powerful way.

Kathy rallies, and Liz allows herself to be cared, and loved.

My
big concern with the movie is simply that I don’t think that the ending is entirely justified. Spoilers ahead, so watch out.
But basically, I don’t believe a sacrifice is called for, given how
things play out. I think that with a little more planning, the mother and daughter
roles could have been re-established without one person in the relationship
giving up everything for the other.

When
one looks at how the monster is fought, and defeated, the preceding sacrifice
is unnecessary. It is, however,
emotional.

The
Monster
succeeds on the basis of its limited location and characters. It depicts a
story that feels “true” to the characters as they are presented, and doesn’t
find it necessary to include a lot of extraneous bells and whistles. The monster costume itself isn’t great, though it gets a great opening shot (blurry, in the background, unnoticed).

Finally, as I've noted the ending isn’t everything I hoped it would be.

But again, I thought back to The Twilight Zone. Special effects weren't the point. Rather, the stories were about the human condition.

And The
Monster is, ironically, the most human of recent horror movies. Approach it on those terms, and you may find it affecting and memorable.

About John

award-winning author of 27 books including Horror Films FAQ (2013), Horror Films of the 1990s (2011), Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), TV Year (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007), Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair (2006),, Best in Show: The Films of Christopher Guest and Company (2004), The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi (2004), An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith (2002), The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film & Television (2004), Exploring Space:1999 (1997), An Analytical Guide to TV's Battlestar Galactica (1998), Terror Television (2001), Space:1999 - The Forsaken (2003) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002).

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